Do the Glozel signs form a writing system that records a language?
Four answers, none aheadNone is ahead yet. See what would settle it.
Where it stands
Four answers have been proposed. None is ahead on the evidence yet. Four are still possible. Of the one narrower question under it, none is answered yet.
Why it matters
The signs look like letters, and Morlet counted 111 of them, far more than an alphabet needs[1][2]. The one statistical test, on 34 tablets in 1977, found none of the properties of natural-language text and suggested a non-linguistic function or a syllabary[3]. Hitz's Celtic readings assume the sequences are text; Dussaud's and Adam's view is that they are signs copied from alphabet tables and set down without order[4][5].
Answers 4
Next steps 3
1
Transcribe the 44 legible tablets of Morlet's Corpus (pp. 69-90, MOM scan) into a sign-occurrence table keyed to Morlet's 111 sign numbers, with line and position, and publish it as a dataset.
~16 h
—not judged
2
Transcribe Morlet's Corpus tablets into a sign-occurrence table and rerun Crawford's test against natural-language and random-alphabet null models.
~24 h
—not judged
3
Repeat Crawford's 1977 test on the full transcription: sign-frequency rank curve, conditional entropy and repeated n-gram counts, compared with natural-language controls and a null model of random draws from Phoenician and Iberian sign tables.
~8 h
—not judged
Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes
History
- René Dussaud: the letter forms on the first tablets match fifth-century Phoenician rather than the archaic script a Neolithic…For: Signs copied from alphabet tables without linguistic order
- André Vayson de Pradenne: the letter forms on the first tablets match fifth-century Phoenician rather than the archaic script a Neolithic…For: Signs copied from alphabet tables without linguistic order
- B. S. J. Isserlin: the letter forms on the first tablets match fifth-century Phoenician rather than the archaic script a Neolithic…For: Signs copied from alphabet tables without linguistic order
- T. D. Crawford: crawford's 1977 computer analysis of 34 tablets found none of the statistical characteristics of a natural-language…For: Signs copied from alphabet tables without linguistic order
- T. D. Crawford: no Celtic epigrapher has accepted Hitz's readings, which require 40 to 50 ligature and geminate signs assigned case by…Against: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Hans-Rudolf Hitz: hitz's alphabet is built from attested Lepontic and Etruscan letter forms and yields readings such as nemu Chlausei…For: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Hans-Rudolf Hitz: hitz's alphabet is built from attested Lepontic and Etruscan letter forms and yields readings such as nemu Chlausei…For: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Patrick Ferryn: no Celtic epigrapher has accepted Hitz's readings, which require 40 to 50 ligature and geminate signs assigned case by…Against: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Patrick Ferryn: hitz's alphabet is built from attested Lepontic and Etruscan letter forms and yields readings such as nemu Chlausei…For: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Wikipedia contributors: no Celtic epigrapher has accepted Hitz's readings, which require 40 to 50 ligature and geminate signs assigned case by…Against: A Celtic language in an Etruscan-derived alphabet (Hitz)
- Session 1: raised the question, proposed four answers and worked on one of its sub-questions